Hi everybody!
Here's an update with progress made this weekend!
Starcraft 2
Progress is going pretty well with the Starcraft 2 version.
I've put together a short video to give an idea of progress and to convey the concept with hexes visually, since it's hard to describe with words:
To give you a clear idea of what's happening - the hexes represent the ownership of the map.
Claiming an enemy hex is simple - move your troops into it and kill any enemies that are holding it.
Hexes need to trace a line back to their Headquarters. If there is no connected link the hex will become isolated.
Units that are in friendly connected hexes will regenerate their energy level, while units in isolated hexes will lose energy.
The intention is to allow players to actually encircle enemy units, not just to enfilade them and gain a tactical positional advantage like in a normal RTS but to affect the units on a strategic scale - hurting their organisation and capacity to fight.
This means that the mod won't be a tactical simulation like the excellent Men of War games. Units will be semi-abstract and are somewhat meant to represent a group of infantry or tanks. The idea is that a unit's energy represents its supply and organisation level, while its HP bar represent the actual troops. Units that have high supply fight better while units with low supply will fight worse and lose much more HP in combat.
Anyone who has played Hearts of Iron should find this concept fairly familiar!
Zero Hour
Neo and Dirty Harry have been working on a new version of the game. We want to package it up and make a new full release.
At the moment the time frame is probably going to be around a month, so hopefully we will have a new download around early March!
As you can imagine a whole lot has changed in the last 5 years. The new version will have a lot of optimisations. Pretty much every model has had its polycount cut. Some are 50% "lighter" than they were in Release 3. The texture size has also been slashed dramatically. The upshot is better performance from the poor Zero Hour engine.
Content-wise the new edition will feature new units, including some important holes in the faction's arsenals being plugged such as an early war 36mm AT gun for the Russians.
Neo has been working on huge historical scenario maps for online play. These massive maps push the engine to its absolute limits!
I'm hoping to be posting news on a fairly regular basis, hopefully every weekend but in any event "Soon"(tm)
Awesome!! I'm glad the Zero hour version is still being worked on, and I'm excited to see how the Starcraft 2 mod turns out!
thanks! :)
Wait, the graphics are going to get worse? Or am I missing something?
The game downscales textures based on the distance to the camera. The actual texture you see at normal game distances is a downscaled version of the master.
The polygon count was slimmed down by deleting extra faces that aren't visible. Either because they were on the underside of the vehicle or were modelling things like turret hatches where the texture looks fine with no geometry to support it.
Overall scaling down and cutting back greatly improves performance and isn't noticable in-game.
If anything the game looks better because it's smoother and can support even bigger battles!
Neo and Dirty Harry have been working on a new version of the game. We want to package it up and make a new full release
At the moment the time frame is probably going to be around a month, so hopefully we will have a new download around early March!
its 2018...........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................5 years..............